Super Spaghetti to keep heart healthy

A new genre of super spaghetti developed from barley will actually keep the heart healthy. Many pasta lovers fear their favourite dish may cause heart problems and the barley based good source of dietary fibre may reduce the risk of heart disease.

Researchers Vito Verardo, Ana Maria Gomez-Caravaca and colleagues reported in the ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, that barley, a grain that is an excellent source of fibre and antioxidants, is gaining interest as an ingredient in so-called “functional foods” — a genre of foods that are supplemented with healthful additives.

To determine whether barley could make functional spaghetti by providing fibre and antioxidants, the researchers developed a barley flour, that contains the most nutritious part of the grain and used it to make pasta. This flour corresponds to the barley by-products and has been obtained by a healthy separation method such as the air classification.

The researchers found that the barley spaghetti had more fibre and more antioxidant activity than traditional semolina-based spaghettis. Adding gluten to barley flour improved the cooking quality of the pasta, but lowered its antioxidant activity.